Noah Addis/The Star-LedgerOfficials remove an object from a boat after searching along the Shark River in Neptune.

Her name was "Lucy" and she had a short life. On her maiden flight in 2006, she crashed on landing during an initial airworthiness check. The pilot walked away unscathed.

Richard Jahns, her builder, spent the next year and a half putting things back together, and this past May, Lucy had what Jahns called her "real" first flight.

This time, the certification pilot reported some problems with a "heavy" left wing and a balky radio, but otherwise said she landed like a dream. Jahns began fine-tuning his baby, as he completed transitional training to fly the hot sport plane.

On Saturday, the plane fell out of the sky at low altitude and disappeared into the thick mud of the Shark River in Monmouth County.

Noah Addis/The Star-LedgerOfficials remove parts of an airplane from a boat after searching along the Shark River in Neptune.

This afternoon, after two days of searching, divers pulled the remains of the plane and her last pilot -- presumed now to be Jahns -- from the river with the help of a barge crane, as investigators began the long task of trying to find out what went wrong.

Authorities would not identify the victim, but relatives of Jahns, a financial adviser from Point Pleasant Beach who remains unaccounted for, were at the scene all day. A State Police spokesman said the family members were notified that a body had been recovered.

The plane, an RV-7, was a fast, two-seater aircraft built from a kit. The sleek, low-wing plane, designed by Van's Aircraft of Aurora, Ore., is popular among home-builders but not without risk. Two other RV home-builts also crashed this past weekend -- also resulting in fatal injuries -- according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

It will take months before the National Transportation Safety Board determines what caused the crash, but records show there were problems with the assembly of the plane from the time it first took to the air.

According to NTSB reports, Jahns, who had been flying since 1996, retained a pilot to perform the final airworthiness inspection and perform its first test flight in October 2006. The plane lifted off the runway in Wall Township that day without incident and returned for landing. But on final approach, as the check pilot adjusted the throttle, the engine failed to respond and he could not increase or decrease power.

The pilot extended the wing flaps -- which act to increase the lift of an aircraft -- telling investigators he tried to "slip" the aircraft, but was "going too fast and was too high" to land. He turned the aircraft to land on another runway, but during the turn, the plane lost altitude and hit the ramp area.

The pilot walked away without injuries, but the plane was seriously damaged. An inspection following the accident revealed the throttle control was disconnected from the fuel servo, leaving the pilot unable to control the engine. A connecting bolt and several washers were found loose inside the engine cowling. A cotter key used to lock the assembly together could not be located.

The NTSB report of the accident said "the owner builder stated he may have forgotten to install the cotter key" and cited the improper installation of the throttle linkage as a contributing factor to the probable cause of the accident.

Jahns spent the next year rebuilding the wrecked plane. On May 1 at 9:10 a.m., Lucy again took to the skies. In a posting on an internet forum for Van's Aircraft builders, Jahns reported the check pilot found the plane was "left wing heavy," meaning the plane seemed out of balance. He told others the problem was apparent only at high speeds, and the landing was "docile."

He left postings seeking answers to some of the problems.

"Looking forward to my transition training, & converting fuel to noise!" He signed his posting, "Rich, on the Jersey Shore. Lucy, RV-7 now FLYING woo Hoo!"

He spelled out for other builders exactly what he did, and how the fixes worked.

"So, now LUCY seems ready for me, it's the I that's the hold-up," he stated, talking about the transition training he was taking to fly the new plane.

"My transition training started off pretty rocky this morning, but things progressed and the end of the day went well. Really looking forward to more time in the air," he said.

On Saturday, the plane took off from the Monmouth Executive Airport in Wall Township. The manager of the airport, Barbara McCauley, confirmed Jahns flew out of there and kept his plane in a hangar there, but she did not know where the aircraft was headed at the time of the crash.

Just before 7 p.m., residents along the Shark River in Neptune saw the plane come in low and loud over the trees. Then it dived, nose-first, straight into the water.